Hurricane

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10)

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet, for just a moment…*

As I write this, there is a hurricane heading my direction. I’m not terrible concerned for myself, although there are those nearby who dread the approach of more rain just a week after a good bit of localized flooding around town.

In the eye of a hurricane…

In the context of the musical, the hurricane to which Alexander Hamilton refers is a crap-storm of his own making. The decision he’s about to make in this pause will create winds that will blow him even farther off course and deeper into trouble.

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet…

My hurricane is much more mundane: a day at work that was long, yet not long enough to finish the to do list, followed by an even longer list of chores at home, not to mention the lesson plans for next week that are due before I go to bed.
But:

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet, for just a moment....

I stop in the midst of my busy-ness — no, actually, I don’t. I find two errands that I can do on the way to a local church. It’s the first Thursday of the month and the doors are open to anyone who would like to walk the labyrinth set into its sanctuary floor. I’d like to leave the to do list and anxiety about the impending storm at the door but the thoughts swirling around my brain enter with me. I start to walk, seeking in vain to focus on my breathing, focus on my steps, focus on the path, focus on anything.

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet, for just a moment…

I am in the eye of the hurricane. Here in this place, this moment, there is quiet, however brief. There is space to put aside life and just be. When my thoughts begin to intrude I play the phrase from Hamilton on a loop in my head and mentally sing along. This one lyric, this one short line of melody, becomes my mantra as I seek the center and then retrace my steps back out. I stay in the eye, in the quiet, as long as I dare, soaking it in, holding back the raging storm of an unfinished to do list, just a moment longer.

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet, for just a moment…

The moment is past, and now I must get home and figure out what I can fix for supper, what my students will learn next week, what I need to get at the grocery store tomorrow if, indeed, those more scared of the storm than I have left me anything on the shelves. Yet I hope I can face it a bit better now for having taken a step out of the raging wind.

In the eye of a hurricane there is quiet, for just a moment…

In the midst of the storm, there is always a calm place somewhere, even if we have to drive to it. The hurricane always has an eye, and if that pause is made possible by a musical theater lyric, so much the better. I’ll listen for the voice of God in whatever form it takes.

*“Hurricane” from Hamilton, words and music by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Aaron Burr, Sir

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:...I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:14-16)

As we have seen before, one of my longtime fandoms is musical theater. Lately, I have been geeking out about the Tony-winning Broadway sensation, Hamilton, in which a racially diverse cast raps their way through a retelling of the early history of the United States with a specific focus on Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father who tends to be known today only as “that guy on the $10 bill” or “that guy who was killed in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr.”

Indeed, a major focus of the show is the development of the antagonistic relationship between Hamilton and his “frenemy” Aaron Burr, the narrator and self-proclaimed “damn fool who shot him.” We don’t have to wait long to find out the reason for Hamilton’s frustration, as the the show’s second song reveals Burr’s motto: “Talk less. Smile more. Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.”

Talk less, smile more. Well, that’s a piece of advice Hamilton, and indeed many of us, should heed more often. We spend so much time running our mouths when so many problems could be averted if we listened instead, and Biblical writers like James and the psalmists provide much evidence in support of this position. But what about the rest of Burr’s statement?

Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for. Now, that’s where Hamilton begs to differ, a complaint against Burr that he makes so often that, as the musical tells it, it ends up getting him killed. From the beginning, Hamilton recognizes the danger of what Burr is doing and calls him on it, using that old adage that I remember hearing countless times in youth Bible studies as a teenager: “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?”

It’s one thing to be reticent when deciding whether or not to openly support an uprising that will get you hanged for treason if it fails, but even later on, when Burr is campaigning for public office, his motto has not changed. He seems nice enough — “like you could have a beer with him” — and he’s popular with the ladies (“tell your husbands, vote for Burr”), but we still don’t know where he falls on the critical issues of the day. When it comes to decision time, as portrayed in the show, the thing that ends up swinging the presidential vote to Jefferson is the endorsement of his bitter political opponent Hamilton, who would rather support someone with whom he has “fought on like seventy-five different fronts” than someone who won’t come out and state his position on anything.

The moral of the story, then, is to stand up for what you believe in. We should definitely talk less and smile more — it’s hard to hear the voice of God when we’re constantly running our mouths. But we should never be afraid to let the world know clearly what we stand for, either. Our words, actions, and attitudes should clearly proclaim that what we are for is our Savior, Jesus Christ.